沙特认证
This essay was original published in Pressing, a newsletter about press freedom. If you haven’t yet subscribed, you can do so here and receive this letter in your inbox every Tuesday morning as well as special features for paid subscribers.
这篇文章最初发表在 Pressing上 ， 这是 关于新闻自由的新闻。 如果您尚未订阅，则可以在 此处进行 订阅， 并在每个星期二早上从收件箱中收到这封信以及付费用户的特殊功能。
On Friday, Twitter removed nearly 6,000 accounts it said were backed by government of Saudi Arabia. The purge was part of an ongoing effort to rid the social media website of accounts that were manipulating Twitter’s platform by spreading misinformation. Twitter said the Saudi-backed accounts removed Friday were part of a larger group of 88,000 accounts they’ve removed in total. With this announcement, the social media giant released a trove of data — mostly anonymized — that offers a glimpse into what these accounts were doing.
上周五， Twitter 删除了它声称由沙特阿拉伯政府支持的近6,000个帐户 。 清除是正在进行的努力的一部分，该努力旨在消除社交媒体网站上通过传播错误信息操纵Twitter平台的帐户。 Twitter说，周五删除的沙特支持的帐户是他们总共删除的88,000个帐户的一部分。 在发布此公告后，这家社交媒体巨头发布了一系列数据(大多是匿名数据)，使您可以一眼了解这些帐户的运行情况。
I’ve also had a glimpse into what these accounts were doing… We’ll get back to that in a bit.
我也对这些帐户的工作情况有所了解...我们将稍等一下。
Since October 2018, Twitter has been releasing data on state-sponsored accounts they’ve suspended. The culprits are predominantly the usual suspects, but maybe one or two will surprise you:
自2018年10月以来，Twitter一直在发布他们已暂停的国家资助账户的数据。 罪魁祸首主要是通常的犯罪嫌疑人 ，但也许一两个人会让您感到惊讶：
Bangladesh — 15 accounts
孟加拉国 -15个帐户
Catalonia — 130 accounts
加泰罗尼亚 -130个帐户
China — 5,241 accounts
中国 -5,241个帐户
Ecuador — 1,019 accounts
厄瓜多尔 -1,019个帐户
Iran — 7,869 accounts
伊朗 -7,869个帐户
Russia — 420 accounts
俄罗斯 -420个帐户
Saudi Arabia — 5,935 accounts
沙特阿拉伯 -5,935个帐户
Spain — 259 accounts
西班牙 -259个帐户
The Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll farm, part of the Russian effort to influence the 2016 election.
俄罗斯巨魔农场互联网研究机构(Internet Research Agency )是俄罗斯影响2016年大选的努力的一部分。
United Arab Emirates — 4,248 accounts
阿拉伯联合酋长国 -4,248个帐户
United Arab Emirates/Egypt — 271 accounts
阿拉伯联合酋长国/埃及 -271个帐户
Venezuela — 1,993 accounts
委内瑞拉 -1,993个帐户
These are just the accounts that Twitter has released some data about. Again, Twitter has supposedly suspended 88,000 accounts in total. Online misinformation campaigns are a major part of how governments — and non-state actors on the international stage — covertly use propaganda and, in some cases, how modern authoritarian leaders consolidate power. Want to talk about fake news? This is actual fake news.
这些只是Twitter发布了一些数据的帐户。 同样，Twitter据说总共已经暂停了88,000个帐户。 在线错误宣传运动是政府(以及国际舞台上的非国家行为者)如何暗中使用宣传以及在某些情况下现代威权主义领导人如何巩固权力的重要组成部分。 想谈谈假新闻吗？ 这是实际的假新闻。
Twitter said the suspended accounts engaged in “spammy behavior” across a wide range of topics, mostly through “inauthentic engagement tactics such as aggressive liking, retweeting and replying.”
Twitter说，被暂停的帐户涉及广泛主题的“垃圾邮件行为”，主要是通过“不真实的参与策略，例如积极的喜欢，转发和回复”。
Twitter’s investigation tracked the effort to an organization called Smaat, a social media and marketing company based in Saudi Arabia, which managed the accounts of many high-profile Saudis as well as official accounts for some government departments. In September, Twitter suspended the account of a former Saudi royal adviser for similar behavior, the BBC noted. The accounts were “targeting discussions related to Saudi Arabia and advancing their geopolitical interests on the world stage.”
Twitter的调查跟踪了对名为Smaat的组织的努力，该组织位于沙特阿拉伯，是一家社交媒体和营销公司，该公司管理着许多知名沙特人的帐户以及一些政府部门的官方帐户。 英国广播公司指出，9月，Twitter因类似行为而暂停了一名前沙特王室顾问的帐户。 这些账目是“针对与沙特阿拉伯有关的讨论，并在世界舞台上促进其地缘政治利益。”
This crackdown comes as Twitter and other social platforms have come under fire from regulators and legislators in Washington, D.C. for the spread of misinformation on their services.
这种镇压之际，Twitter和其他社交平台因其服务中的错误信息传播而受到华盛顿特区监管机构和立法者的抨击。
Once upon a time, this world found me too.
从前，这个世界也找到了我。
Last fall, when Jamal Khashoggi went missing, my editor at The Atlantic called me into his office and asked if I had heard about “this Saudi guy.” I said yes but, admittedly, I was as familiar with Jamal’s work as my editor was — barely.
去年秋天，贾马尔(Jamal Khashoggi)失踪时，我在《大西洋报》的编辑叫我到他的办公室，问我是否听说过“这个沙特人”。 我说是的，但是，诚然，我和我的编辑一样熟悉贾马尔(Jamal)的作品，几乎没有。
Soon after we talked, the gruesome details emerged. Jamal went into the Saudi embassy in Istanbul, Turkey. He didn’t leave the embassy alive. A bone saw was used. Later on, the CIA and the UN individually concluded that Jamal’s death was an assassination ordered by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS). MbS was supposed to be a reformer; the veneer vanished immediately. Not only was Jamal a Saudi citizen in exile; he was an American resident. He lived only a few miles away from me in Northern Virginia. My editor told me to go talk to his friends.
我们谈话后不久，出现了可怕的细节。 贾马尔(Jamal)进入了土耳其伊斯坦布尔的沙特大使馆。 他没有让大使馆活着。 使用了骨锯。 后来， 中央情报局和联合国分别得出结论，贾马尔的死是沙特王储穆罕默德·本·萨勒曼 ( Mobham Bin Salman )下令暗杀。 MbS被认为是一种改革者。 单板立即消失。 贾马尔(Jamal)不仅是流亡的沙特阿拉伯公民，而且还是流亡者。 他是美国居民。 他住在北弗吉尼亚州 ，离我只有几英里远。 我的编辑告诉我去和他的朋友们聊天。
I talked to his friends. The result was one of the most gut-wrenching experiences I’ve had. After 36 hours of reporting, I broke down and cried. The title of my piece was simple — Jamal Khashoggi’s Friends in Washington Are in Shock — but the process was anything but. I learned, above all things, that this man at the center of an international incident… was just a shockingly normal guy. And he was murdered for doing his job — the same job I do. But, when you write critically about your homeland and your homeland is Saudi Arabia, you can get killed.
我和他的朋友们聊天。 结果是我经历过的最痛苦的经历之一。 报告36小时后，我崩溃了，哭了起来。 我作品的标题很简单-Jamal Khashoggi的《华盛顿的朋友们正处于震惊之中》 -但过程不过如此 。 我首先了解到，这个人是国际事件的中心……这真是一个令人震惊的正常人。 他因做他的工作而被谋杀–和我一样。 但是，当您批评性地写关于您的祖国并且您的祖国是沙特阿拉伯时，您可能会被杀。
A couple of months later I attended a memorial held for Jamal in the U.S. Capitol Building, where I listened to Members of Congress wax poetic about freedom of the press — but only one even mentioned MbS by name. I wrote about that too.
几个月后，我参加了在美国国会大厦为贾马尔(Jamal)举行的纪念馆 ，在那儿，我听了国会议员对新闻自由充满诗意的讲话-但只有一个人甚至提到了MbS。 我也写过这个 。
Throughout that time I was getting tweeted at more and more.
在那段时间里，我越来越受到推文的欢迎。
Suspicious looking accounts were tweeting Khashoggi-related news items at me. They weren’t very pro-Saudi, mostly tweeting straightforward news articles from mainstream outlets; but the accounts were odd. Therefore, I imagined they came from a country or organization opposed to the Saudis — like Iran. The often tagged me in photos on Twitter — a weird thing to do for any user.
可疑的帐户正在向我发布与Khashoggi相关的新闻。 他们不是非常亲沙特人，主要是在推特上发布来自主流媒体的简单新闻。 但是账目很奇怪。 因此，我想象他们来自像伊朗这样的反对沙特阿拉伯的国家或组织。 经常在Twitter上的照片中标记我的名字-对任何用户来说都是一件奇怪的事情。
I wrote down some names and accounts:
我写下了一些名字和帐户：
Carl Fountain @cfountain07
卡尔喷泉 @ cfountain07
Tricia Perry @CiatriPerry
特里西娅·佩里 @CiatriPerry
Antilia Williams @AntiliaWilliams
安蒂利亚 ·威廉姆斯 @AntiliaWilliams
Jan Scheelar @janscheelar
扬·史基拉尔 @janscheelar
Yasir Arafat @yasirarafat789
Yasir Arafat @ yasirarafat789
Rizwana Kareem @Rizwana_kareem
里兹瓦纳·卡里姆 @Rizwana_kareem
Their faces looked like stock images, but simple image searches didn’t confirm they were. Some of them had hundreds of followers even though they barely posted anything original. Their biographies indicated that many of them, allegedly, worked in human rights.
他们的脸看起来像是股票图像，但是简单的图像搜索并不能确定它们是真实的。 尽管他们几乎没有发表任何原创作品，但其中有些人拥有数百名关注者。 他们的传记表明，据称其中许多人从事人权工作。
It was happening every day, more or less. Until it stopped.
它每天或多或少都在发生。 直到停止。
By April, I realized the posts had stopped. I hadn’t reported them or anything, but Twitter clearly caught on and found them. Each one of the accounts I had written down was suspended. Their tweets are gone, but their footprint is still on the platform: I searched one of their accounts on Google and found a thread about comedian Hasan Minhaj, whose show “The Patriot Act” criticized the Saudi government and, in turn, Netflix prevented it from appearing in the Arab nation. This is what it looks like when accounts disappear on Twitter:
到四月份，我意识到职位已经停止。 我没有报告过它们或其他任何东西，但Twitter显然抓住了并找到了它们。 我写下的每个帐户都被暂停了。 他们的推文不见了，但他们的足迹仍然留在平台上：我在Google上搜索了他们的一个帐户，发现了关于喜剧演员Hasan Minhaj的话题，哈桑Minhaj的节目“爱国者法案”批评了沙特政府，反过来，Netflix 阻止了它从出现在阿拉伯国家。 当帐户在Twitter上消失时，情况如下所示：
Once upon a time, @CiatriPerry’s account was here and now it’s gone. But was it ever really here?
从前，@ CiatriPerry的帐户在这里，现在不见了。 但这真的在这里吗？
Much of the Twitter data trove is anonymized. I couldn’t find the accounts I listed in what’s been published. I expect they’ve been anonymized. And I imagine what I experienced is a small morsel of a global information warfare.
Twitter的大部分数据资料都是匿名的。 我找不到在已发布内容中列出的帐户。 我希望他们已经匿名。 我想我所经历的只是全球信息战的一小部分。
In 2019 posters, ad campaigns, and propaganda films have been replaced with likes, retweets, and shares. If you’re interested in affecting global opinion, try to rig a social network, game their algorithms and get your message across in seemingly innocuous ways. (If you’re a dictator reading this, a.) thank you for subscribing and b.) ignore what I just said.)
在2019年，海报，广告活动和宣传片已被点赞，转发和分享所取代。 如果您有兴趣影响全球舆论，请尝试建立一个社交网络，运用其算法，并以看似无害的方式传达您的信息。 (如果您是一位独裁者，请阅读a)。感谢您的订阅； b)忽略我刚才所说的内容。)
Under mounting pressure, Twitter and some of its compatriots are, luckily, starting to crack down on what’s been happening online for a long time now.
幸运的是，Twitter及其一些同胞承受着越来越大的压力，开始严厉打击很长一段时间以来的在线事件。
翻译自: https://medium.com/swlh/where-did-all-the-saudi-bots-go-e8fac751888b
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